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Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

arstechnica.com

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Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#781

Post by meigwilym »

eterevsky wrote: post #777
danjac wrote: post #772

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one thing if your favourite video host or chatbot crashes, quite another if it's a self-driven car, airplane control software or, in this case, a submarine.

I'm not saying you should hack a sub from a scrap metal and just use it as is (which seems to have happened here). But you can rapidly iterate on your project to first make it functional and then gradually improve its reliability. What matters is not the process, but the result. For example, SpaceX are using iterative approach in their design and they now have the most reliable rocket in history.

I'm not sure of your point here. You claim that SpaceX's process was an iterative one which lead to the 'most reliable rocket in history', but state that the process does not matter.

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#782

Post by johnwalkr »

truemotive wrote: post #689
raphman wrote: post #686

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems your comment is missing a part: There's only one list item - which is truncated: > 1. There had to be a certification process to use the controller, including risk analysis which would absolutely deny any attempt to

Fixed, thanks. I've had a lot of thoughts about this lately. Here's another fun fact: What's wrong with this picture taken while the submersible is out of operation? https://i.imgur.com/lBWlh3i.png Answer: Look underneath the floor. The Altec Lansing ACS33 PowerCube 2.1 speaker system. $35 used on eBay and again from early 2000s era. -> https://i.imgur.com/fVdQ9Pc.png Not safety critical, but so extremely indicative…

Wow that's bad. Every new detail looks like something out of an undergrad project. It works to hack something like that together as a first prototype, but even a masters student in a decent lab with decent mentors can make something much more professional. It's like they must have actively prevented anyone with any professional experience whatsoever from seeing it.

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#783

Post by mobiuscog »

thrashh wrote: post #705
major4x wrote: post #666

One shall not obsess with the game controller they use, I suppose, in their analysis, failing the controller wouldn't prevent the sub from resurfacing... It is symptomatic, however. The whole Silicon Valley is like that. You have the old guard, NASA, millions for fault analysis, rumors go the C code on some NASA rocket was certified at $1000 per line---human eyeballs reading it... All those start-ups and unicorns, th…

Nothing has changed. The reason NASA did that is because the stakes were so high. They couldn’t send a firmware update in the middle of a journey and the reputation of America hinged on the success of NASA. If you are under that level of pressure, you make sure you dot your i’s and cross your t’s.

Pressure is pretty high, 4km deep...

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#784

Post by whywhywhywhy »

taneq wrote: post #760
major4x wrote: post #666

One shall not obsess with the game controller they use, I suppose, in their analysis, failing the controller wouldn't prevent the sub from resurfacing... It is symptomatic, however. The whole Silicon Valley is like that. You have the old guard, NASA, millions for fault analysis, rumors go the C code on some NASA rocket was certified at $1000 per line---human eyeballs reading it... All those start-ups and unicorns, th…

> You have the old guard, NASA I thought the latest round of NASA missions were using commodity hardware and taking the fail-early-fail-often approach (at least compared to the old days)? And in doing so have delivered, all failures included, the most bang per buck of any NASA missions? Not saying I'd trust my life to a gamepad alone, but pragmatism is a virtue in engineering.

> Not saying I'd trust my life to a gamepad alone

I’d trust it to an Xbox, PlayStation controller, they’re some of the most reliability tested input devices ever. Most people are freaking out because it’s some known glitchy budget gamepad.

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#785

Post by eterevsky »

meigwilym wrote: post #781
eterevsky wrote: post #777

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying you should hack a sub from a scrap metal and just use it as is (which seems to have happened here). But you can rapidly iterate on your project to first make it functional and then gradually improve its reliability. What matters is not the process, but the result. For example, SpaceX are using iterative approach in their design and they now have the most reliable rocket in history.

I'm not sure of your point here. You claim that SpaceX's process was an iterative one which lead to the 'most reliable rocket in history', but state that the process does not matter.

As I see it, there are two approaches: "NASA" approach and "SpaceX" or "Silicon valley" approach. In "NASA" approach you are building the system bottom-up ensuring the reliability on each level. In "SpaceX" approach you build a barely functional system as fast as you can and then iterate to improve reliability (and other characteristics).

The top comment in this thread seems to imply that "NASA" approach is inherently better, especially for safety-critical applications. My view is that from the point of view of safety, the approach doesn't really matter and what matters is the results, i.e. reliability. At the same time from the point of view of development velocity iterative approach is clearly better.

In case of the sunk submarine, it seems that the company followed iterative, "SpaceX" approach, but they didn't actually iterate enough to make their sub seaworthy.

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#786

Post by ekianjo »

neuronerdgirl wrote: post #458
ekianjo wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is what happens when you take the move fast and break things culture Or then you take things slow and you end up like NASA who has not launched any new rocket in years. Is that better?

... yes?

You cant have space exploration without people dying.

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#787

Post by andix »

underdeserver wrote: post #733
major4x wrote: post #697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theranos? All those cases of neglected security when data leaked and/or people killed themselves over scams?

As far as I remember the Theranos people used standard commercial tests, and sold the results as coming from their magic device. So the results were solid - the fraud was elsewhere. I might be remembering this wrong.

They used the commercial devices far outside specification (with too small amounts of blood), which made the results unreliable.

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#788

Post by ekianjo »

ChristianGeek wrote: post #399
ekianjo wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is what happens when you take the move fast and break things culture Or then you take things slow and you end up like NASA who has not launched any new rocket in years. Is that better?

They haven’t killed anyone in years, either.

Zero output guarantees that

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#789

Post by ekianjo »

liamwire wrote: post #346
ekianjo wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is what happens when you take the move fast and break things culture Or then you take things slow and you end up like NASA who has not launched any new rocket in years. Is that better?

In regards to human life, unambiguously yes.

The nasa is also supposed to actually launch stuff you know

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#790

Post by danjac »

eterevsky wrote: post #777
danjac wrote: post #772

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one thing if your favourite video host or chatbot crashes, quite another if it's a self-driven car, airplane control software or, in this case, a submarine.

I'm not saying you should hack a sub from a scrap metal and just use it as is (which seems to have happened here). But you can rapidly iterate on your project to first make it functional and then gradually improve its reliability. What matters is not the process, but the result. For example, SpaceX are using iterative approach in their design and they now have the most reliable rocket in history.

Your first examples weren't rockets, but search engines, video hosting platforms and chatbots.

Second, it's all very well "iterating until you succeed" but that's not a good approach when live humans are involved in the iterating. "Move fast and break things" is not the same as "move fast and break people". Space X, after all, had to prove a certain level of reliability before NASA let them fly people to ISS.

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